The Parallax View (Short Circuits) | 
| Author: Slavoj Zizek
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 68729
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 528
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0262240513
Dewey Decimal Number: 199.4973
EAN: 9780262240512
ASIN: 0262240513
Publication Date: February 17, 2006
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Product Description
The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.
Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.
The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 the gaping parallax June 6, 2008
"Noncoincidence of the One itself" represents more of the same from an academic who keeps refusing to acknowledge that he is getting ever fatter, older and more timid. The endless references to other artists & philosophers do not help the reader to access meaningful knowledge - they obfuscate it. In other words, Zizek's provocations are a mask, a simulacrum for courage with which one is to face the (a) real world.
This book may be a yet another cynical and perhaps nihilistic attempt at cheating Oneself through dazzling the Others. Its fundamental lack of cojones is... disappointing.
 Food for thought April 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Enjoyable as it is to read Zizek (the table of contents is itself a work of art), the inflation of 180 degree turns (" in fact, the EXACT OPPOSITE is the case / is the better interpretation) and the phrase "this is PRECISELY what Lacan meant with .....", makes it impossible to give more than 4 stars.
Though there is a certain emptiness / lack of practical implications in Zizek's writings (which he defends in terms of refusing to provide the Left with "the formula" they demand, instead using his fame to position himself as object a, frustrating our demands), it should be noted that he definitely penetrates deeply into the field of political thinking, too, and he has made me revise some of my opinions about Scandinavian social democracy.
 Very insightful February 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's a synthesis in Zizek's trajectory, but also it opens his work toward new discussions
 Very Provocative November 16, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
The ambition of the "short circuit" book series in which this volume is published is to establish unexpected connections between aspects of the real, so as to create power blackouts within the system and to send electroshocks that will shake the reader out of its apathy. It purports to do to modern theory what Marx did with philosophy (short-circuiting philosophical speculation through the lens of political economy) or what Freud did with morality (short-circuiting the highest ethical notions through the lens of the unconscious, libidinal economy).
Slavoj Zizek's distinctive contribution to contemporary thought is to short-circuit radical theory through trivia, profanity and obscenity. In a way, he succeeds beautifully. No other author knows so many things about nothing, or is capable of establishing so many linkages between popular culture and philosophical speculation. And his ability to shock and disturb makes his text more akin to the performance of a contemporary artist than to the work of an academic.
The opening chapter sets the tone. After suggesting that Heidegger should also have included the f... word in his exploration of the metaphysical dimension of the concept of Fug as found in his Holtzwege, Zizek pursues by applying Hegelian dialectics to the whole gamut of sexual practices and proclivities. In a jubilating piece of sophomore humor, he deducts each sexual act and known licentious conjugation from the other through the rules of inversion, sublation, antinomy, double negation, and synthesis. Although the author then enters into self-denial mode, stating that "for a true philosopher there are more interesting things in the world than sex", the rest of the book demonstrates that sex, as well as profanity, is indeed the lens through which the philosopher's worldview is constructed.
Indeed, much as Adorno conceived the catastrophes and barbarisms of the twentieth century as inherent to the very project of Enlightenment, Zizek sees an obscene virtual supplement as an inverted mirror image that sustains our ideological edifice. According to his line of thought, this obscene underside forms the necessary supplement to the public values of personal dignity, democracy, and freedom. He sees this subversion at work in various contemporary events as well as in classical texts. Kant's abstract ethic called forth the literary excess of Sade, and each philosopher doubles as a pornographer.
Zizek's politics is even more bizarre. If one follows him closely, a religious fundamentalist is a liberal's best friend, and one should untap the revolutionary potential of slum dwellers who turn to Pentecostal Christianity or radical Islam for salvation by allying with their devout leaders. Lenin gets many praises, and so does Alain Badiou, whose "provocative idea that one should reinvent emancipatory terror today is one of his most profound insights". The proof of Stalinism's superiority over Fascism is found in the fact that many Gulag prisoners sent complimentary cards to Stalin on his birthday, whereas Jews in Auschwitz didn't send their best wishes to Hitler. Even proto-Fascists get some praises for their artistic tastes.
As is often the case with radicals, Zizek reserves his most cruel piques to fellow progressive thinkers and activists. Deconstructionists are shown the door early in the volume, and the author makes it clear that recourses to platitudes about the allegedly "undecided", "open" character of the narrative is an excuse for weak thinking. He notes that the oncoming reign of the multitude as prophesied by Hardt and Negri, with its insistence on decentralization of decision-making, radical mobility and flexibility, strongly resembles the world of global finance, the standard bete noire of the traditional left. He is a critic of the "cultural turn" and its interpretation of commodity fetishism, the idea that the workers' consciousness is obfuscated by the seduction of consumerist society and the manipulation of the ideological forces of cultural hegemony, so that the focus of critical work should shift to "cultural criticism", the disclosure of ideological mechanisms which keep the workers under the spell of bourgeois ideology. And he compares all forms of radical protests to the rite of "rumspringa" in Amish communities, where youngsters experience a phase of unbridled freedom before joining back the seclusion of their community, thereby ensuring their adherence to the system.
On the whole, I found this book very thought-provoking, and I was impressed by the author's ability to address so many subjects from an unconventional angle. But his provocations are rather gratuitous and will discourage many readers, who may feel further alienated by the author's politics.
little-a-ness May 31, 2007
1 out of 17 found this review helpful
"The clue to this book is in the little-a-ness: the simulacrum of the [...] is PARALLAX , the vernacular translation of the text itself being DOUBLE VISION. Well, fair enough, after a whole magnum of opus anyone's focus would be a little ,er, shall we say inconsequential."
Nice Cover!
There are some other things I might say about this book but Zizek, along with Bartleby, would probably prefer not.
Instead let me use my amazon review as an open letter to the Man. Listen man, you inspired a lot of people, showed them how to delegitimate the text of the default culture, took the argument forward. But now what you doing? This aint dialectics man. Maybe you are on the wrong drug, try some mellow green. It's not all about twos and ones it's about ONE NO ( not a dithering decline) and MANY YESES ( affirming transcendent autopeoses).
Use your head not your eyes and your appetite, come back and join the human race in our struggle to save ourselves and our world. Another World is Possible!
One Earth One Love One Struggle
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